Interview: Part II: Barry Diller: ‘The Business Model For Content Is To Be Paid For It’

The backdrop behind the front desk in the lobby of IAC’s Chelsea headquarters shows glittering lights on a world map, each one signaling a visit to one of the company’s websites — more than 835 million across its network in April from roughly 194 million uniques, according to comScore (NSDQ: SCOR). Use a blue wheel and you can see a specific site: search engine Ask, Citysearch, Match.com, ServiceMagic, virtual worlds Zwinky and GirlSense, Daily Beast and more. But not as many as there were before IAC (NSDQ: IACI) spun into five pieces, leaving this version a more manageable size with only 35 or so brands. No Expedia. No Lending Tree. No Ticketmaster. No HSN (NSDQ: HSNI). Barry Diller’s grand dream of convergence that once included cable networks and transactions has been pared down to a pure internet company that doesn’t rely on synergies.

In part one of his interview with paidContent focusing on that shift in digital strategy, Diller, the chairman and CEO of IAC, talked about his realization that “a